Blogs

Hello! I'm Caroline Shahar from Constant Contact. I'm new to this blog, but if you've taken one of our educational webinars, you may have already heard from me (read my bio to learn more). Anyone who knows me know I'm passionate about helping small businesses and nonprofits succeed, and I hope you find my posts here helpful. To that end, please let me know what you like and don't like. Any and all feedback is helpful. And that brings me to my first post...

This is a question that we are asked often here at Constant Contact. Understandably, everyone (including myself) is looking for a silver bullet that will result in higher open and click-through rates.

Want to keep the people on your list reading your emails? One of the best ways to do it is by segmenting your list and communicating in a more targeted way with each group. This month's Hints & Tips newsletter explains the benefits of segmentation and gives ideas and examples on how to do it.

How do you segment your list? How do you communicate differently with each group? What positive results have you seen? Tell us about it!

Every day when I get home from work, I do four things… 

1. Greet my black lab who meets me at the door
2. Greet my husband who meets me at the top of the stairs
3. Put down my extremely heavy bag
4. Go to the kitchen table to riffle through the pile of mail waiting for me

When I get to number four, I always find myself hoping that there is something really interesting, or personal, or special waiting for me—like a card or invitation from a friend or family member, or maybe a little unexpected gift (I love presents!). Why I keep hoping, I don’t know, because at least 90% of what’s in the pile is JUNK. Can you relate?

This month's Hints & Tips Email Marketing newsletter focuses in on list building. You'll get best practices to follow and fresh ideas for growing your list.

Read the July issue here.

How do you grow your email list? Share your ideas by making a comment below. We want to hear from you!

The Constant Contact Best Practices Blog welcomes new blogger, Ellen Siegel, our Director of Technology and Standards here at Constant Contact.

Ellen is the one who makes sure that we are on the “straight and narrow” when it comes to best practices. She is a CAN-SPAM expert and is knowledgeable on a broad range of current deliverability technologies. In an ongoing effort to help fight spam and protect legitimate email, Ellen is also a leader and active participant in a number of email industry organizations including the Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) and the  Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG).

As a blogger, Ellen will cover issues including anti-spam, email authentication, deliverability, the law (as it relates to email marketing), and more. She will help you understand how these issues can affect you and offer guidance in navigating them.

In her first blog post, she gives an update on the recent developments with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Welcome, Ellen!

As you may have heard, several weeks ago the FTC released its Statement of Basis and Purpose and Final Discretionary Rule (“final Rule”) on the CAN-SPAM ACT. So, what do you need to know about the FTC updates?

The update contains four new rules, and also contains some clarifications and guidance to the text of the original act in the form of the Statement of Basis and Purpose (SBP). Quite a lot to digest!

The good news is that if you are a single organization sending email on your own behalf and you comply with the existing CAN-SPAM guidelines, it’s likely that the new rules will have relatively little impact on you.